My life on the borderlands.

Category Archives: Heaven

Nothing in physical reality stays the same forever, for it is the nature of physical reality to be constantly changing: expanding, contracting, giving birth, wielding death, bringing new life from death again. Your civilization of the West has been living in a reality of continuous stimulation to purchase objects, objects that are touted as possessing the abilities to make you feel young, beautiful, strong, healthy, desirable, hopeful, safe. No object, however, can do any of these things, for objects themselves break down, wear out, are discarded in favor of new objects. And so the cycle continues.

The only possession that does not break down, wear out, fall apart, get lost in the laundry, mess itself up by banging into other objects—the only possession that does not change in physical reality—is (1) pain and (2) joy. Mister Rand objects, “Pain can change if I am willing to feel it and work with it.” That is correct, if by “pain” one means “specific pain arising from specific incidents.” These indeed can soften into background noise, barely perceptible, with no power to limit the onetime sufferer’s life. But pain itself—one’s capacity for suffering, the existence of pain in physical reality—the fact that physical reality provides endless opportunities for pain—that does not change. As long as there is a physical reality, pain will be available.

Mister Rand finds this statement angering and disheartening. “Pain caused by resistance can be mitigated by learning to accept rather than deny what is happening,” he says. “Pain inflicted upon one by a physical source such as sciatica or an angry spouse can be mitigated by medications and physical therapy on the one hand and reconciliation counseling or divorce on the other. But you’re saying that all the claims of certain world religions, that some day God will transform physical reality into a place where no pain, no suffering, no disease, no hunger, no violence exists—you’re saying that this is not going to happen?”

That is correct. That is what we are saying. As long as physical reality exists, pain will be possible, for physical reality is a reality of hard and soft, harsh and gentle, violent and peaceful, good and evil. As we see it in fact, the only realities where pain is available are physical reality and its close companion, the plane of existence we call thought reality. Sometimes called the plane of mind or the astral plane, thought reality is the level of reality where all minds from all times and spaces can meet and interact. Of the nonphysical realities, thought reality is the closest to physical reality, and it mirrors physical reality’s joys and sorrows.

Everything that happens in physical reality sets off sparks in thought reality. These sparks become what we call thought forms, which have, to the aware human mind, all the appearance of reality. When Mister Rand goes into a mall, and begins feeling overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of the crowd, he is unconsciously being battered by thought forms generated by the humans in the crowd. That is because, as Judgment Essence in his Tarot of You system of personality exploration, Mister Rand is particularly prone to sensing and absorbing the mental projections of humans and animals. If Mister Rand permits these thought forms to attach themselves to him, he begins to feel as his own the suffering of those who generated these thought-forms. And this often results in his withdrawing as much as possible from the life outside his own head.

What is the point of this discussion? Our point is that, while you are in physical reality, suffering is one of the experiences that is inevitable here. But physical reality is not the only reality in which your consciousness is embedded, and suffering is not the only experience available here. There are many joys and pleasures available in physical reality as well. Physical reality holds beauties innumerable, and pleasures that have nothing to do with possessing objects that will inevitably decay. Furthermore, Mister Rand is continually connected to the consciousness of his Greater Self, and in the nonphysical he is surrounded by what your Bible calls “clouds of witness”: disembodied friends and relatives, spirit guides, angelic consciousnesses who wish him only well and if called upon can help him make choices that will open up new avenues of pleasure for him.

For every pain in physical reality there is a solace, even if that solace be death; and for every death there is a resurrection. •

Nothing in physical reality maintains its form forever. This includes the shape of spacetime itself, if “shape” can be used to refer to a nonphysical, nontemporal probability construct in which the phenomena of energy and matter can form regular recurring patterns. Therefore degradation, delapidation, denigration, and devastation can seem stronger forces than those of re-emergence, recurrence, innovation, renewal, and resurrection. But “Death”, one of the Tarot’s Major Trumps cards, signifies not just endings, but the beginnings that spring from the endings. So a persistent, invasive terror of death, which at times in his life Mister Rand himself has felt, can actually hide a deeper terror: a terror of rebirth.

Stephen Levine, in his book, Who Dies?, observes that in his experience working with hospice patients, the persons who have been the most fearful of living are those who tend to be the most fearful of dying. For much of his life, Mister Rand has attempted to maintain a sometimes precarious existence on the borderlands of consensus reality—i.e., on the sidelines of life. This is because his early childhood experiences had taught him to expect that it was safest to be invisible. So he never developed the skills requisite for a thriving social life, and greatly feared intimacy, for the most nurturing person in Mister Rand’s childhood had also been one of the most abusive. Consequently, Mister Rand did not easily trust intimacy, as witness the fact that Mister Rand had only one romantic partner, the late Stuart “Alex” Lucker, who died two years into their relationship.

Since that time things have changed for Mister Rand. During his years in Santa Fe, attending a Twelve Step group for persons with eating disorders, he has learned to trust many of the persons he has met in his meetings, and some of them have become friends. In addition, his psychic work, and his … involvement with The Celebration, a leaderless Santa Fe spiritual group, has enriched his social life in ways he could only have dreamed of when he was younger and more frightened.

We say these things not to embarrass Mister Rand, nor to solicit pity for him, but to illustrate the limitations of fear-based thinking when considering all the richness of possibility that physical reality has to offer.

In your Bible it says of the story of redemption, “These things the angels themselves desire to look into.” While in the original the Bible writers intended this sentence as a reference to the concept that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah or Savior of the world, we submit that it can also be employed to refer to physical reality itself—that unbodied spirits long to directly experience for themselves what life in physical reality is like.

What does physical reality have to offer that the nonphysical realities do not? This is an important question, because in your theologies, “Heaven”—being a reference to not only the intangible “afterlife” but also to the sky above your heads—is considered superior to “Earth”, the physical plane in all its manifestations. Yet there are some experiences only available in physical reality, and it is these experiences that the angels desire to look into. Some of these experiences include sensory experiences of light, sound, color, music, scent, texture, movement, and temperature; the pleasures of creativity through art; the pleasure of patient guided unfolding of a possibility as it changes into a reality; and the expansion of understanding triggered by incarnational experiences such as birth, sickness, romance, reproduction, child rearing, freedom fighting, [observing and interacting in love with animals, plants, and insects], and the recovery from illness. The experience of the passage of time itself is an experience that can only be enjoyed and benefitted from by those in physical reality.

In looking over our list, Mister Rand asks (. . .), “But is the joy that physical reality affords us worth the suffering it also affords us? What of the millions suffering unspeakable pain? How can smelling a flower offset the sheer weight of their dismay?” The answer, of course, is that a person dying of AIDS in a back alley needs consolation, water, food, medications, and supportive social interactions, not just the smelling of a flower. And since the hands of God are the hands of Mister Rand and those other spirits who have taken on flesh, seeking God’s will for assessing what help to give the dying person is the responsibility of Mister Rand and his acquaintances. For the joy of helping to relieve another’s suffering is another experience that only physical reality (and thought reality, its close sibling) can provide.

In the nonphysical realities, there is no sense of separation between Self and Other. Individuation does exist in the nonphysical, but it is individuation seen and felt always in its context of All-That-Is. In physical reality, where consciousness often appears limited to, or framed by, the brain organ, physical and emotional separation are regularly experienceable. So opportunities to reveal these separations as the illusions they are at core are precious, and if taken with care and awareness, yield exquisite experiential results.

So there is, in our opinion, a case to be made that Heaven is not superior to Earth; they are two sides of the same coin, different but equal. And Divine Love is present throughout both realities. Call upon It today to make Its presence known to you in your life as you really are just at this moment, and keep on calling upon it until you become aware of the answer. And we thank you for sharing today. •

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About Rand B. Lee, The Rational Psychic

Since the mid-1980s Rand B. Lee has served an international clientele as a professional psychic specializing in life-purpose, career, love, wellness, relationships, spiritual development, prosperity, recovery, the Tarot and trancework. Rand works with individuals, couples, and groups in person, over the telephone, or via Skype.